Esme Cullen
Full Name: Esme Anne Platt Evenson Cullen (PC1) Status: Vampire Date of Birth: 1895 (PC1) Date of change to vampire: 1921 – she was 26 (PC1) Originally from: Columbus, Ohio (PC1) Hair color: Caramel (TW15) Eye color: Vampire gold/black Height: 5’6” (PC1) Physical description: Heart-shaped face, small, slender but round (TW15) Personality traits: Ability to love passionately (TW14) Occupation: Antique Restoration (PC1) Family members: Married to Carlisle (PC1) Source of change: Carlisle Cullen (TW14) Hobbies: Architecture and restoration (PC1) Personal history: In 1911, Esme broke her leg falling out of a tree she’d climbed. Her family lived on a farm on the outskirts of Columbus. The local doctor was away, and it was after dark by the time they got her to the small hospital in Columbus. A Dr. Cullen treated her. It was his last month in town. She never got over the experience. (PC1) Esme was the last of her friends to marry. She was thinking of moving West to be a schoolteacher, but her father didn’t think it was respectable for a lady to live alone in the wilds. The son of a family friend, a man with good prospects, wanted to marry her, and her father pressured her to accept. She was indifferent towards Charles Evenson, but not opposed to him. She married him in 1917 at the age of 22, and quickly found that this had been a bad decision. Charles’s public face was very different from his private face; he abused her. Her parents counseled her to be a good wife and keep quiet. When he was drafted to fight in WW1, it was a huge relief to her. When he came back in 1919, it was terrifying. (PC1) Shortly after his return, Esme discovered she was pregnant. The pregnancy was Esme’s catalyst to escape. She couldn’t let a child be brought into that home. She ran away in 1920 to live with a second cousin in Milwaukee, and then moved further north when word of her whereabouts leaked to her parents. She blended in easily, pretending to be one of the many war widows. She taught school in a small community outside Ashland. When her baby died in 1921 from a lung infection just a few days after he was born, she had nothing left. She had no idea that Carlisle was working in the little hospital in Ashland when she jumped off the cliff outside the town. Carlisle remembered her, of course, as the happy girl she had been at sixteen. He didn’t want her to die and so he saved her. (PC1) When she opened her eyes, in all that pain, and saw the face that she’d never forgotten in a decade, she was relieved. She was not really that upset to find out she was a vampire, but she didn’t take it as in stride as Emmett had. Still, she was happy to be with the man/vampire of her dreams and they were soon married. She did always have that maternal ache, and, as the physically oldest of the Cullen’s, she fell into a mothering role. (PC1) Esme and Edward pretended for some time to be brother and sister since their features were so similar. As the Cullen family grew, this deception transformed into Esme and Carlisle being the foster and adoptive parents of several teenaged children. (TW1) Her concern for Edward never ceased, though, especially since everyone else in the family had a committed relationship and Edward was alone. (TW15) Esme was present in 1936 when Carlisle made the initial treaty with the Quileutes to stay off of their land. (TW6) The home they bought in the area of Forks was one that Esme loved and spent time restoring the beautiful historic home. (PC1) They returned to the house in 2003 with the intention of staying there for some time. (TW1) Esme supported Edward when he met and fell in love with Bella Swan. It upset her greatly when Edward left for a short time to run away to Alaska, and it was partly because of Esme that Edward decided to return. So when Edward’s feelings for Bella deepened, Esme told him to do whatever he needed to do to stay in Forks with the family.(TW13) Having spent so many years being worried about Edward living his life alone, it thrilled Esme to see him falling in love with someone. (TW15) When James began his hunt for Bella, Esme switched clothes with Bella to try to confuse the scent. She and Rosalie took Bella’s truck in a direction opposite from where Bella was going with Jasper and Alice. (TW19) She continued to be supportive of the relationship even after Bella’s disastrous 18th birthday party. She left Forks at Edward’s request, and went with Carlisle to Ithaca where she restored a seventeenth century house located in the forest north of the city. (NM17) When asked to vote if Bella should become a vampire, Esme voted in favor of the change. (NM24) She fought alongside the rest of her family and the werewolves when the threat from Victoria loomed after Bella’s graduation. (EC25) Esme helped plan Edward and Bella’s wedding (BD3) and even readied a small cottage on the Cullen property for them to use as their home separate from the rest of the family. (BD24) When Bella announced her pregnancy, Esme stood by her decision to have the baby. (BD9) Then, after Renesmee was born and the Volturi threatened to come and start a battle, Esme welcomed visitors from all over into her home to stand as witnesses on Renesmee’s behalf. (BD30-32) She stood with her family when the Volturi eventually arrived. (BD36-38) Portrayed in the films by: Elizabeth Reaser